Basel-based Harry Gugger Studio and Boston’s over,under have collaborated to design the Museo Maya de América, Central America’s largest museum of Maya artifacts and culture. Planned for a prominent site at the Northern edge of L’Aurora Park in Guatemala City, the $60 million project will be the “capstone” to a “cultural nexus”, which will eventually include the Children’s Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art within the city's largest recreational open space.
The Mayor of Lyon, France, has unveiled plans for a dense, mixed-use district planned for the Lyon Confluence. Masterplanned by Herzog & de Meuron, in collaboration with landscapist Michel Desvigne, the 35-hectare scheme will be the first plot developed in the second phase of a larger regeneration initiative that aims to “double the city-center” by reclaiming a massive, post-industrial site on the city’s central peninsula. Once complete, the second phase, known as “Ilot A3”, will provide more than 2,000 homes in a lush residential park and vibrant “market quarter.”
Bidding for the future home of Barack Obama's Presidential Library is underway with three locations claiming the chief executive as their own. Obama's birthplace, Hawaii, has mounted a campaign in pursuit of their native son, followed by New York City's Columbia University, where he received his bachelor's degree in political science. Architect and urbanist Michael Sorkin believes it is the Windy City, however, his adopted hometown, that will ultimately win the presidential library bid.
UNStudio has been announced as winner of a competition to design a 60-meter residential and office tower in Munich. Planned to be the “focal point” of the Baumkirchen Mitte development, the project will feature 13,000 square meters of “neutral” office space that promotes “flexibility” and “creativity” as well as 5,500 square meters of contemporary apartment units that each share a strong, private connection with the surrounding landscape.
Read on for the architect’s description...
After winning a Transport for London (TfL) tender for ideas to improve pedestrian access across the River Thames, Thomas Heatherwick and Arup unveiled plans for a new, 367-meter long ‘Garden Bridge’ that will span the river from Temple to the Southbank. The lush pedestrian corridor, earmarked for opening in 2017, would be the first new crossing since the Millennium Bridge opened to the public in 2002.
More details and updated images after the break...
REX has just released their winning competition design for a unique residential competition: a private residence for three generations. The estate includes the parents’ home, four children’s homes, event space, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, gym, spa, library, study, home cinema, and performance space.
In an attempt to transform Calgary’s corporate-centric downtown into a walkable, dynamic community, TELUS has commissioned BIG to design a mixed-use skyscraper in the heart of the Canadian city. Known as TELUS Sky, the 750,000 square foot tower is designed to “seamlessly accommodate the transformation from working to living as the tower takes off from the ground to reach the sky.”
OMA has broke ground on a 27,000 square meter, mixed-use development on the banks of Copenhagen’s historic waterfront in the culturally rich Slotsholmen district. Upon its completion in early 2017, Bryghusprojektet will become the new headquarters for the Danish Architecture Centre (DAC), while also providing housing, offices, retail, a restaurant, and an urban park. These programs will be stacked over and under the busy Christians Brygge, providing city dwellers direct and uninterrupted access to the water’s edge.
OMA Partner-in-charge Ellen van Loon explained: “Instead of stacking a mixed-use program in a traditional way, we positioned the DAC in the centre of the volume, surrounded by and embedded within its objects of study: housing, offices and parking. The urban routes reach into the heart of the building and create a broad range of interactions between the different program parts and the urban environment.”
More images and the architects' description after the break...
In order to serve its rapidly expanding population of more than five million, the ArRiyadh Development Authority has commissioned Zaha Hadid Architects to construct the new King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD) Metro Station in its capital city of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
With six platforms over four public floors and two levels of underground car parking, the KAFD Metro Station will be integrated within the urban context of the financial district, while responding to the functional requirements for a multimodal transport centre and the district’s future vision. The project extends beyond the simple station typology to emphasize the building’s importance as a dynamic, multi-functional public space; not only an intermediate place perceived through quick transitions, but also a dramatic public space for the city.
